Only Lonesome You Remains
by flowermasters
Summary: PostRENT, oneshot. -- Roger would pray if he could, but jumping seems like a much simpler alternative.


**A/N: ANGST! Whoo! And this time around, Roger isn't the dying one. Lol. Actually, this whole thing started as an entirely different oneshot . . . Mimi was totally not supposed to be part of it. But I decided I'd write the obligatory "Roger angsts after Mimi dies" oneshot. Title comes from 'Straitjacket Feeling' by The All-American Reject. Warning: Angst, sadness, mentions of character death, some language, thoughts of suicide, and Roger boozing it up. So, yeah. Read on.**

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I'm drunk. So drunk I can barely walk right. My legs want to quaver and buckle and send me falling, because they're traitors, just like the rest of my body. But I want to fall. I want to just lay down, just lay here until I die, silent and unmoving and unfeeling. Feeling and moving hurts.

They buried her today. I think.

I don't remember. I don't remember anything, just her eyes. And her smile. And her laugh.

God-damn it.

There's a bottle in my hand. I think it's cheap whiskey. It's almost empty, but still I keep drinking. That bitter burn is so sweet.

I bite my lip. It bleeds. Too bad Mark hid every sharp object in the loft, or it wouldn't be my lip that was bleeding.

Could I do it? Kill myself like April did, so long ago?

Yes. I could. I have no pride and no willpower anymore, not today, not ever again.

I would do it. I can imagine it, so perfectly. I wonder how long it would take. It would hurt, I bet. So much.

Memory floods back, suddenly. They did bury her today. Her funeral. I sat at the back, in the very last pew, alone. Mark tried to get me to sit up front with him, Maureen, Joanne, and Collins, but I wouldn't because her coffin was up there, and I didn't want to be close to it. That's not my Mimi in that box. My Mimi was so happy, so pretty, alive. Not a cold corpse with a rosary stuck in her clasped hands. She wasn't even religious, let alone a good Catholic. I don't know who put a cross in there with her, but I want to slap them.

I bet it was her mother. She was there today. She cried loudly, so loudly it made my head hurt. She looked back at me, so imploringly, like she wanted to talk to me. I ignored her and stared at the pew in front of me.

I tried to pray while I was there. The last time I was inside a church (not counting Angel's funeral – I try not to remember that day), I was about ten. My mother slipped me candy as a bribe to keep me quiet and still while she stared blankly at the preacher. _Our Father who art in Heaven, the Lord is my shepherd, lead us not into temptation, deliver us from evil, swing low, sweet chariot. _The words blur in my mind. I don't remember God ever doing anything for me, but I tried anyway.

Mimi wasn't religious, but I can remember her praying, once. She was real sick, and it was all Spanish, but I heard "_Santa Maria, Madre de Dios_", and even I knew enough Spanish for that one. She was so delirious, though. That's how she was at the very end.

Benny was there today, too. He sat by himself, but not at the back, like me. Is that bad? He could sit near her body and I couldn't? He cried. I didn't. I couldn't. But she loved me more, always.

That small victory doesn't feel as good when she's dead and gone. I take another mindless sip. The whiskey burns, just like it's supposed to.

I look around. I'm on the roof. How did I get here?

My feet move of their own accord, my mind sluggishly trying to keep up, my thoughts swirling and muddled, sloshing like the last dregs of the booze in my bottle. I'm at the edge before I have time to realize it.

The city is relatively quiet. It's almost night, the sun hanging low, and it would be beautiful if there wasn't so much god-damn smog in the air.

Forget that. It wouldn't be beautiful anyway.

I look down. The street below is unusually empty. I wonder if they know she's dead, those usual street-roamers. They wouldn't care if they knew. No one would.

Would anyone see me if I jumped?

No. And it's not like anyone could catch me.

_Do it, _I tell myself. _You miss her, you need her, do it, jump, jump, please jump._

Suicides go to Hell. I don't want to go to Hell.

I wish I could pray. Even if there's no God, I wish I could. _Our Father who art in Heaven – _but the thought is empty, carrying nothing, and I push it away.

_Jumpjumpjumpjumpjump._

And then I fall.

Not forwards, but backwards. My ass hits the roof hard, and the bottle clinks on the ground and rolls away from me, and I'm scooting backwards, away from the edge, and I'm sobbing. God, I'm sobbing so hard.

I press my face against the palms of my hands, my shoulders shaking, feeling like I might break, if I'm not already broken right in half. My sobs actually aren't that loud, but to me they sound wild, crazed, so sad.

I must faint, because when I'm awake again, it's dark. Well, mostly. The moon is shining brightly, and I feel sick and terrible.

I squint up at the sky, my head pounding. The stars are so bright, the moon like a spotlight. After a while, I sit up, slowly, my head whirling a bit, making my stomach lurch. It's not silent by any means – in the distance, I hear a car alarm – but it might as well be, as isolated and alone as I feel.

I scoot back to the edge of the roof, my head still achy. My legs dangle over, and I look down, at the street below. Someone walks by below me, a couple. They're laughing over something. The man is tall and sort-of-but-not-really-thin, and the girl is petite, with curly hair. The similarity makes my heart ache with both sadness and a strange sort of wistful fondness.

I don't think Mimi would have liked seeing me like this. Well, obviously not, who would have? But I think it would have hurt her especially. Made her upset. Probably would have made her cry. I really didn't like it when she cried.

The couple rounds the corner at the end of the street, their voices fading away, replaced by mostly silence (except for the car alarm, still going in the distance). Then, I hear Mark's voice.

"Roger? Are you up there?" he calls. He must be out on the fire escape. He sounds worried. Then again, Mark usually sounds worried. With good reason – I tend to be a little erratic, even when not drunk on the roof mourning my (second) dead girlfriend.

My voice is hoarse and raw when I call back. "Yeah."

He doesn't sound relieved, as I expected. "Coming in soon?"

I don't answer, just scoot away from the edge of the roof and stand up. I stumble and nearly topple over, but I right myself, my head whirling. I glance up at the moon, then out over the city, then at the edge of the roof.

_Not tonight, _I think as I slowly head inside_. _I'll be with her soon. But not tonight.

But she'll wait. I know she will.

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**A/N: Well, did you like it? Review, please.**


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